Washing Line

• Tilda Neilly, Grade 4
• Short Story
• 2019

I feel so humiliated! I’ve had sauce down my back, the red staining my white crispiness. Then I was drenched with pink lemonade, from my lace-covered sleeves down to my dainty little hem. Why am I here?!?! Then, just as I think my day couldn’t get any worse, a party pie is thrown onto my collar, completing my look.
At last I make the long journey home. That was a treacherous outing, and one that I would like to forget. My owner walks away happy and excited, unlike me who is discarded into the washing machine as if in disgrace. The first cleansing cycle makes me feel relieved and refreshed as the bubbling water washes away my tiredness and humiliation. The quiet water washes my brain as well as my fabric, leaving me with a relaxed sensation. When the roller-coaster ride comes to a stop, I am left damp and sad, tangled with my rivals in the dark.
After a few hours (or what seems like it), I am carried out into the sunshine. I am pegged to the line by my sleeves. I stare longingly at the silver scarf, thinking in vain how well we would go together. I save a distained look for the workman’s shirt, still with little bits of grass and dirt stuck to it every which way. The silver scarf gives me a knowing look. ‘Great minds think alike’, I think proudly to myself. The little socks stare at me from where they are hooked on the line and my good friend the business shirt speaks to me in the wind.
I am welcomed and congratulated and everyone asks how it went. “Well… It was torture. Everybody laughed at me when we got there and the little girl cried on me. Then we played bullrush and I got grass stains down my front. And then we had a food fight and you can guess what that means”. I say, all in one breath. They all um and ahh and tut tut about my story. I feel embarrassed. As I drift in and out of their conversations, I realise important information. I am dry. This only means one thing. Home.
As I realise this, one of our owners comes outside to start folding us up. She then returns me, ironed and pressed neatly, back to the secret order of the dark, quiet wardrobe.